Mises Institute

Mitt Romney

Willard Mitt Romney (born in Michigan on 12 March 1947) is the son of former Michigan Governor George Romney. He founded the investment firm Bain Capital and later ran for the Massachusetts Senate in 1994, losing to incumbent Ted Kennedy. Romney took over the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and helmed a successful 2002 Olympic Games. He became governor of Massachusetts in 2003 and made a run for the Republican nomination in the 2008 election, losing to candidate John McCain. Romney made a second run for the U.S. presidency in 2012, with U.S. Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate, but was ultimately defeated by President Barack Obama in a tight race.[1]

According to Joshua Green, he could have turned his business experience into an asset rather than a liability, since he performed a useful function for the economy. Even Bill Clinton has lauded his "sterling career" as a businessman. Instead of putting that career at the center of his campaign, Romney has taken pains to avoid it. After an early attempt to portray himself as a âjob creatorâ who put 100,000 people to work, he mostly dropped the subject of his time at Bain Capital. Ceding that story allowed his opponents to frame the race around the most unflattering details of his careerâlayoffs, plant closingsâstripped of their broader context, and to portray Romney as a vulture capitalist.[2]